I designed a custom PCB at easyeda.com and had it fabricated at jlcpcb.com. Soldered all the keys and some components onto it, and used a Teensy 3.2 as the microcontroller. The code for the Teensy is also written from scratch (I didn’t know about QMK at the time).
I then designed a case in OpenSCAD, this is the bottom for example:
The PCBs rests on top of the screw holes. Then there is a top piece that looks fairly similar to the bottom part on top of it. I also 3D printed a blue strip that fits in between, just to make it look nicer. Everything is screwed together with some flathead bolts from the bottom.
I initially planned to make the case from some nice solid wood. I decided to make a test cut in 8mm MDF first, but I then decided to just paint it black and use that as the actual case. I really like how it turned out!
That looks excellent. This is one of those dream projects along with an arcade cabinet. I also really like the split versions. I have an iris on my desk that needs a case…
this is a cool thing.
I like it much!
Is there anyhere a building instruction for the keyboard hardare?
I Know, that Cherry Microswitches can be used, but I’d like to know how it works.
The goto DIY keyboard electronics are based on using QMK firmware. There are some pretty good tools and documentation on using it, but less on building your own, AFAIK.
I don’t have any build instructions. I don’t mind sharing the design files if you’d like to have them, but I would definitely make some changes if I would build another keyboard.
At jlcpcb.com you can now order PCBs with SMT assembly for a very low price, so I would definitely redesign it for that. I’d also redesign it to use an AVR processor, because QMK seems to work best on that (and it would be cheaper than a Teensy).
Now that I can mill aluminium (in theory, haven’t tried it yet), I might also try a design with an aluminium backing plate. In this version, the keys are soldered directly onto the PCB. Works fine though, so I might keep it this way.
I’m still in doubt whether I actually need the leftmost and rightmost sets of keys (the function keys and the cursor keys). I can also type those keys by holding one of the thumb keys, which changes the function of the other keys (eg. j is left, i is up, k is down, l is right, etc).
If I like the keyboard enough after typing on it for a while, then I’ll probably build another one for work. So far I like it, but it does take time to get used to. Productivity definitely drops in the beginning. I am finding it much easier to type completely blind though, and to hit the right keys more consistently. I can change the meaning of keys with the thumb keys, so pretty much every key is accessible with moving any finger at most one key away.
Do you vim? I have these in my NAV layer, but I get to the nav layer via the capslock key (I never use caps lock). I also set this up on my laptop keyboard using xmodmap in ubuntu. The next row (nm,.) is what I use for pgup, pgdn, home, end.
IMHO, I like having no keys on the right. I am right handed, so I like to have my mouse as close as possible. It lets me center my keyboard more easily. I have been considering making a 10-key or more on the left for odd shortcuts and key chords.
I use my 10-key on the keyboard way too much when throwing IPs into a document. I worked at a retail store that didn’t have barcode scanners so you had to hand-punch the numbers in and the prices onto a 10-key.
I really do like that keyboard. I have a few friends that have built custom keyboards. Once the first person built one, they all built one. That was when I was first getting in to reef tanks again, so my tank at the time was taking all my money or I would have built one too.
I still use a Microsoft Natural keyboard. It has served me well. I used to have one of the older style ones, but it died on me a few years back. The newer ones do well enough to keep my wrists from hurting after a day’s worth of typing. I also used to use a track ball. It too died and is one of the ones you can’t get new ones of anymore either. I went back to a normal mouse, but I got one of the more expensive hand-fitting ones. I cranked the sensitivity up so I don’t have to move my hand much to get from one side of the screen to another. That slowed down my productivity too until I got used to it.
I do use vim, but not that much. I never used hjkl for navigation in vim actually, I always use the cursor keys for that. A previous iteration of the keyboard did not have the cursor keys, but I missed it too much. Especially when I’m moving around a lot, also in combination with home/end/pgup/pgdn, hitting ctrl and shift etc.
Here’s my full layout: layout.zip (96.1 KB). I settled on this layout after several iterations. The greenish keys are the home keys. The left middle thumb key switches to the nav layer, and the leftmost thumb key switches to what I call the sym layer. It makes a lot of characters easily accessible that I typically use when I’m programming. Also note the tilde/esc/tab keys on the nav layer: very handy when I’m using the mouse with my right hand.
Back in the day I played NetHack for hours and hours on end. Then one day, years later, I went to use vim for the first time and gee, by magic, I can easily walk on this text file. And my pinky didn’t cramp up like it invariably did in Emacs. I was sold. (I know, no politics, so that’s all I’ll say about that.)
